How to make the biggest impact with your kerbside recycling and why it’s important to get it right…
Most Aucklanders like to think they’re pretty good at using their recycling bins correctly, but the reality is that household recycling is still heavily contaminated. Far too much rubbish is ending up in recycling bins, and a significant amount of recyclable material is still being lost to landfill because of it.
The scale of the issue is significant. It’s estimated that around one-third of all material collected from residential kerbside recycling bins each year ends up in landfill. That includes items that cannot be processed, as well as contamination that ruins otherwise recyclable loads.
Auckland’s kerbside recycling is processed at a large sorting facility in Penrose, where around 140 to 150 truckloads arrive every day. Everything must be sorted and processed within the same day before the next wave of trucks begins arriving. At that scale, there is no capacity for manual sorting or correction — the system relies entirely on households putting the right items in the right bin in the right condition.
The machinery that sorts recycling is incredibly clever, but it isn’t magic. It can only process specific materials, shapes and sizes. Soft plastics are a major problem because they wrap around machinery and can shut sorting lines down entirely. Small items — roughly anything under 5cm — often fall through the sorting equipment and end up in landfill even if they are technically recyclable. Flat, lightweight plastics such as ice cream or takeaway container lids can also contaminate paper recycling, as they are often mistaken for cardboard or paper products.
Even bottle lids can create issues. Plastic bottles are compressed into massive bales for transport, and under pressure, lids left on bottles can fire off at high speed, potentially damaging machinery or injuring workers. Lids are also often made from different types of plastic than the bottles themselves, making them difficult to recycle together.
Kerbside recycling is designed for a fairly small range of household packaging: paper and cardboard, glass bottles and jars, food and drink cans, and plastic bottles or containers marked with recycling numbers 1, 2 or 5. It is not a catch-all bin for anything made of glass, metal, plastic or paper. Items such as drinking glasses, Pyrex dishes, window glass, aerosol cans, batteries, glossy wrapping paper and receipts can all contaminate the recycling process or create safety risks.
Dirty recycling is another major issue. Food residue and liquids reduce the quality of recycled materials and can ruin entire batches. At the scale Auckland processes recycling, contaminated loads often have to be discarded because there simply isn’t time to clean items individually. A quick rinse before putting containers into the bin makes a significant difference.
But according to people working in the industry, the biggest issue isn’t lids or incorrect plastics — it’s the sheer amount of ordinary rubbish being placed into recycling bins. The Penrose facility reportedly removes around nine tonnes of landfill waste every hour from Auckland’s recycling stream. That’s nine tonnes every hour of material that should never have been placed in a recycling bin in the first place.
Recycling properly does matter. Every time materials like aluminium, paper, glass and plastic are recycled, it reduces the need to cut down trees, mine raw materials and manufacture products from scratch. Aluminium is one of the clearest examples — experts estimate that if all aluminium products were continuously recycled, there would be little need to mine new aluminium ore at all.
Recycling correctly might take an extra minute or two — rinsing a container, removing a lid, checking a recycling symbol — but those small actions make a real difference when multiplied across an entire city. Every recyclable item kept out of landfill is a resource that can be used again instead of wasted.
So next time you stand over the recycling bin wondering whether something belongs there, remember one simple rule: if in doubt, leave it out.
Where to Take Things That Can’t Go in Your Kerbside Recycling Bin
- Soft plastics (bags, wrappers, film packaging) — Soft plastic bins at New World Waiuku and Pukekohe Library
- Lids (plastic lids from bottles/jars and flat plastic lids from ice cream/takeaway containers…) — Waiuku Zero Waste, Pukekohe Library, or participating schools (including Waiuku Primary)
- Batteries — Battery drop-off points (Waiuku Zero Waste, Mitre 10, participating retailers, or hazardous waste collections)
- Aerosol Cans — empty cans only, Waiuku Zero Waste
- Dirty Containers — Rinse and recycle or rubbish bin if unclean
- Tetra pak containers — Waiuku Zero Waste, if rinsed, sliced open, and flattened
- Coated / Glossy Paper or Cardboard — Rubbish bin
- Glass (drinking glasses, Pyrex, window glass) — Rubbish bin
Want to learn more?
- Get in touch to book a Recycling Right workshop for your school or community group.
- Keep an eye on our Events page for upcoming free community recycling workshops.
- Learn what you can recycle at The Yard.
